Determination of Fracture Modes in Novel Aluminum-Steel Dissimilar Resistance Spot Welds

With increasing demands to improve vehicle fuel economy, multi-material body structures are increasingly utilized in the automotive industry for structural lightweighting purposes. These multi-material structures pose challenges in dissimilar material joining, particularly aluminum to steel. General Motors (GM) developed a new resistance spot welding technique using a multi-ring domed electrode and multiple solidification weld schedules to …